Chloe Zhao interview: Nomadland, Eternals, and how she’ll bring her hybrid doco-drama approach to the Marvel universe

There’s a buoyant scene in Nomadland – the hotly tipped Oscars favourite from writer-director Chloe Zhao – where Fern (Frances McDormand), a 60-something widow who has packed up and driven away from her old life in Nevada, arrives in Quartzsite, Arizona for the annual gathering of RV dwellers known as the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous.

A tracking shot follows her as she wanders through a sprawling fairground of tents and vans: a makeshift community made up of older, largely white Americans who’ve found themselves jobless or homeless after the recession, and are now inventing a better life on the open road.

The handheld camera gazes out across the desert, taking in the towering cacti and the people who surround the Oscar-winning actress –…